Unpackaged visit

I went to Unpackaged the other day. John Grant and many others have talked about Unpackaged before, but briefly, it's a shop where all the stuff they sell has no packaging.

I'll admit I was hugely sceptical. It just sounds like some twee, middle England, poncey London, greenwashing fest. After all, anyone can sell this sort of stuff with no packaging.

But I'm pleased to report it's a lot, lot better than that. Sure - it's small and it's expensive, but it's also brilliant. And it looks great.

Those little boxes hold flour and nuts and dried banana skins and what not. They're all designed to be easy to clean, even the tags can be wiped clean and reused for another product. That's good sensible design.

So you bring your own bag / box / jar and you save 50p. They will even refill olive oil bottles, which is pretty impressive.

There are some things they can't unpackage yet. Ecover won't give them a great big vat of washing up liquid for example, but you can leave all the packaging there for recycling. I understand this is common practice in Germany?

There's lots of great little ideas here. Yes, it needs to be bigger (in size and scale) and it needs to be cheaper to have a big effect, but it's a great start and it's a glimpse of how things could be. Surely all packaging designers should (nowadays) start with the goal of having no packaging and then work backwards from there?

More pictures on Flickr.

UPDATE: Catherine Conway from Unpackaged has just emailed me to clarify a few points.

Firstly (and importantly) the shop was designed by Multistorey

Secondly she's asked me to correct an inaccuracy,

"you mention that some things can’t be unpackaged- the Ecover example is wrong as they do provide us with vats of cleaning products" "most people buy it [Ecover] in refills from us." "an example of something we can’t unpackage currently would be cotton wool or toothpaste."

We also had a little discussion about what I meant by expensive. Cath says, "The question of whether it’s expensive is a moot point- our prices compare pretty favourably with like for like products (organic, fair trade) in supermarkets but are obviously more expensive than their value counterparts…"

I guess I should have been clearer. What I really mean is that for an unpackaged concept to be adopted across the whole country it would have to cater for the people that shop in Iceland as well. Do you know what I mean?

Anyway. Happy to clear all that up.

Comments

[emily*]

That looks great, by why does it have to be such a novelty thing? They've been selling food without packaging in Canada (and so I assume likewise the States) forever, and still as regularly today. In every supermarket there is what's called a "bulk" section, where there are huge vats of every dried product you can think of, and wet ones too! Honey, jam, peanut butter and cooking oils are all dispensed from big tubs. When I was living there I found this very handy because it meant I could buy a very small amount of something, which was especially useful over there where the standard size package tend to be a lot bigger. So contrary to what the name suggested, I used the bulk section for buying in miniature!
Its not true that Ecover don't provide large vats of washing up liquid, I've used them in a few Organic/health food shops including my local in Lower Clapton, so they've no real excuse there.
Ultimately though I agree, the problem lies in the cost. The fill-your-own Ecover needs to be cheaper than the pre-package version in the supermarket, and currently that is not the case.

[Jay]

Its quite a good organic shop, that one in Lower Clapton. It tends not to shout the 'organic message' too much in your face. Which is a nice change...

[Andrea]

They used to have them in communist romania too, just because bulk was cheaper!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22574002@N04/2172792811/

[UorP.]

They have the e-cover refilling thing nationwide afaik, and fruit and veg shops have been selling 'unpackaged' forever, only the pick and mix thing sounds innovative (and even then that's a very small i).

I wonder just how much packaging they are really saving, a packet of flour is just a single piece of paper for instance. It seems a lot of effort when a whole year's worth of shopping might be negated by buying a single newspaper, or losing a box etc.

[minxlj]

There are no Ecover refilling shops near me, which is a huge shame. Plus my local council is shamefully bad at providing recycling for plastics (I am currently badgering them!)

I love the idea of unpackaged goods - and I'm a graphic designer, so I'm kind of doing myself out of work here :-) But I HATE going shopping and having the packaging mount up, especially plastics. Local fruit and veg shops aren't open at the times I have to go shopping (I only have Sundays free, and guess when the shops close? argh!) so I'd love to see a shop perhaps doing a 6pm-10pm weekday shift...that's the only way they'd tackle the convenience of a supermarket for busy people like myself.

On a side note, the shop above looks so much more interesting than rows and rows of packaging. And it makes me hungry just looking at it!

[Emily Wilkinson]

Really interesting how you thought it was greenwash at first and how greenwash doesn't have to relate to big brands. We've just published a report on greenwash - download it at www.futerra.co.uk!